Welcome back to the West Coast, Messed Coast™ report. Your humble correspondent took some time off to tend to Mr. West Coast, Messed Coast™, who’s been on the DL after spinal surgery. Due to his ever-present “cone of shame,” he’s incapable of performing many tasks we all take for granted, so I am his humble servant. However, he has taken leave of me so I can provide you with today’s report.
I’ve already highlighted the lowlights of California’s “Fiscal Firestorm,” which is a testament to the Democrats’ utterly reckless leadership. So how about we start with the same leaders’ ownership of the utterly reckless way in which they’ve been playing catch and release with some of the most contemptuous and dangerous criminals in the state?
How’s No Bail Working Out for You?
Our first stop on the West Coast, Messed Coast™ report takes us to California, whose cadre of George Soros-bankrolled district attorneys and their fellow travelers in the Democrat super-majority legislature have tripled the violent crime rate since “no bail” rules went into effect. That was a lot for just one sentence, so you may wish to go back and review it.
A study commissioned by Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig found that suspects “released without bail were rearrested on 163% more charges than those who posted bail, and they reoffended 70% more often.” The net effect? “Violent crime tripled and felony offenses nearly doubled.”
What are you looking at? Your safety isn’t important, California’s woke Left seems to be saying.
No bail has been an utter failure if — and it’s a big if — one counts public safety as a goal.
Irony Alert
The case of stupid hanging over the West Coast, Messed Coast™ like an odiferous miasma has settled over Washington state, where mental health big shots and the Department of Corrections are busily planning to release the worst of the worst sex perverts from McNeil Island into neighborhood homes, as I previously reported. McNeil Island is where these unfixables are sent after their prison terms have expired.
Parents of children who wait for the school bus across the street from the Tenino-area residential property that will house a handful of the Washington state’s unfixable sex criminals have filled inboxes and town halls with outrage, fighting for their children’s safety. A daycare is ensconced nearby. No matter.
Related: California’s Predicted Fiscal Firestorm Has Arrived
The same woke people who tell parents the state is in charge of their children are back to say that, actually, it’s the parent’s job to keep their children safe. A recent town hall saw a victims advocate lecture parents on keeping their children safe. To be clear, the parents were there to stop their children from becoming future victims, a fact that escaped the notice of the gas bags speaking at the meeting.
See my story about this nearby.
Lie to Me
A California teacher was fired because she declared she would not lie to parents about their children’s gender choices in school.
Jessica Tapia talked to Fox News Digital about the choice she was forced to make between being a teacher and a Christian.
“I knew immediately, like in my gut, in my heart, in my soul, that there was a decision I had to make because, you know, these two things were totally butting heads,” Jessica Tapia, who worked at the Jurupa Unified School District, told Fox News Digital. “I essentially had to pick one. Am I going to obey the district in the directive that are not lining up with… my own beliefs, convictions and faith? Or am I going to stay true…, choose my faith, choose to be obedient to… the way the Lord has called me to live. And so it was crazy to be in the position where I realized that I couldn’t be a Christian and a teacher.”
Media mogul Glenn Beck said Tapia’s case may be ripe for a legal challenge, which he hopes will go to the Supreme Court.
A school in California told a teacher she MUST violate her religious beliefs and LIE to parents about their kids' gender identities. She refused and the school fired her. Sounds like a great Supreme Court case to me. pic.twitter.com/Vrbt4oYYnF
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) February 16, 2023
Psst…Where’s the Pappy Van Winkle?
Oregonians proudly point to the fact the state has no sales tax as a reason to shop there, but when it comes to booze that’s a big fat lie. The state’s excise tax on booze raises prices so high that it pencils out to drive to California for a moonshine run.
Related: Portland Is Flummoxed by its Broken Windows Epidemic — Seriously
Oregon sells nearly all its booze at chosen licensed liquor stores and, like the mob, shakes down the owners for monopoly protection.
Enter the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC). The state-sanctioned booze hounds at the OLCC were recently caught in the act of siphoning off the cherished nectar of the gods, Pappy Van Winkle, for their personal use and leaving the proletariat wanting.
The Oregon Capital Insider newsletter reports that OLCC leaders confiscated for their personal use rare 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle out of only five bottles of the sought-after bourbon available for the entire state.
A state report disclosed by The Oregonian showed that [Steve] Marks asked for 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle bourbon be set aside for him. Pappy Van Winkle is aged bourbon whiskey from a Kentucky distiller that dates back to 1935.
[…]The oldest and most sought after vintage of the Pappy Van Winkle lineup, Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old, is the whiskey that all others are measured against.
[…] A December 2022 lottery had just five bottles of the bourbon available in Oregon – drawing 20,748 entrants. Winners had a 1-in-4,500 chance to buy the bourbon, which sold in state liquor stores for just under $330.
The Rare Whiskey Shop sells a bottle of the same bourbon for $5,599.99.
The new governor has asked for heads to roll.
Portland’s Goat Rodeo
Even the goats aren’t safe from Antifa.
Portland’s Antifa franchise recently set free a herd of goats that munch down the brush on public land. It seems the goats were going to be moved to a plot of land on which a dozen fentanyl-addled campers currently squat.
Tucker Carlson covers Portland Antifa goat attack story https://t.co/5vCUAtHEql pic.twitter.com/8X3T8EXWis
— Oregon Catalyst (@oregoncatalyst) February 13, 2023
The Antifa anarchists left behind a note saying goats weren’t as important as people, which is objectively true. There’s a big difference, however. Goats clean up after themselves.
Hypodermic needles collected by Downtown Portland Clean & Safe sanitation staff, per data compiled by the nonprofit:
2018 — 39,000
2022 — 176,000
— Shane D. Kavanaugh (@shanedkavanaugh) February 10, 2023
Until next time.
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